Belle Royale - Kriek
Driftwood Brewery

I'm usually a big fan of Driftwood, so I jumped on a new beer from them when I saw it on the shelf. Unfortunately they really missed the mark with this one. Though the beer pours nice and looks good, a strong alcohol taste completely dominates the flavour.

 

 

This beer looked nice upon pour, a cherry/brown in color with a wisp of head that broke relatively quickly. The light shines nicely on this beer and it glimmers as waits to be consumed. The smell had cherry and wood, and although there was another scent that was not as pleasing (medicine) , it was a decent nose. The taste gives a burst of cherry and wood, but then immediately you notice the medicinal tastes....cough syrup, band aids and other such lovely profiles. I decided to let the beer open up and warm a little more to see if these eased, they did not. The general feel is lighter, though a little syrupy and medium low carbonation. Not much more to be said there.

For me this is the first miss from Driftwood, who have been very consistent with the quality of their products. I have to think that there was an infection in this bottle, and that not all have experienced the same from this beer.

 

650ml bottle - nice poetry on the side label, but it tells me little to nothing about the beer itself, FYI. But I suppose that's what all those symbols next to it are for, eh?

This beer pours a clear, dark red-brick brown colour, with four fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and yet fizzy tan head, which leaves but a few scraggly wisps of sudsy lace around the glass as it quickly blows off.

It smells of tart red fruit, lightly singed rubber, gritty and grainy pale malt, some wet musty woodiness, a wee medicinal character, some aged white cheese, and very tame earthy, weedy, and floral noble hop bitters. The taste is mildly smouldering tire fires, sour cherries, a further dark and woody red wine fruitiness, grainy and crackery wheat and pale malt, ethereal band-aid/horseblanket musty essences, maybe a bit of lemon rind acerbity, and some rather ephemeral earthy, musky, and dead floral 'verdant' hoppiness.

The carbonation is quite active in its swirling and whirling frothiness, the body a so-so medium weight, and not particularly smooth, not with all the shit going on around the place here. It finishes off-dry, lots of cherry-forward dark fruitiness hanging about to combat those lingering complex and often unwelcome beasties.

Overall, this is not the train wreck that others have deemed it to be, but there is certainly something more than a bit 'off' about this brew, and I do believe that it is at least somewhat intentional. Age something in used red wine barrels, with four different wild yeasts, and you're bound to get myriad flavours as described above. And yeah, lots of people seem to like that sort of thing, or so they keep telling me.

Something went awry here. Lot's of ashy and smokey aromas and a definite off-flavour in the finish. Sort of fecal/band-aid. The aroma still carries some deep cherry, raisin, and acidity, but turns chaotic with those aromas not entirely following through in the mouth, then a full move towards that smoke and band-aid.

I appreciate trying a new bottle, but there's something that needs to be fixed in this.

A: Red-brown, just a little head.
S: Sweet cherry, something sour, boozy.
T: Delivers on sour cherry. Tart, dry, complex, boozy. Probably too intense for me to drink a bomber by myself, but what else am I going to do with it?

Yikes. I could barely taste the cherries buried under all these wondrous off-tastes - rubber and acetone being big hitters for me. This is the second sour of theirs I've had where I thought "yikes, something went wrong with this somewhere" (first one being the framboise, Venatrix or whatever).

As it stands, I think I'm gonna give future Driftwood sours a miss unless I hear good things. As someone famous once said, "fool me twice, uhhh.... you can't get fooled again!"